Don't Slay the Dragon (The Chronicles of Elizabeth Marshall Book 1) (11 page)

“No, Professor Craig, you don’t understand.”

“It’s nothing to be ashamed of.  I’m sure many victims of child sexual abuse gravitate towards a class like this one to help them understand what they went through.”

“Professor Craig, this isn’t about me.  It’s about a friend.”

“Oh, I see.  A ‘friend’.”  I could tell he didn’t believe me.  He seemed very sincere and I thought he was one of the best professors I had.  Maybe it would help to have someone like him to confide in.

“
Listen, do you have a little time before your next class?”  I asked.

“My next class isn’t for two hours
.”  He gave me a puzzled look.

“Ok,” I sat down in the closest seat and he followed suit and took a seat a few places away.  “Let me tell you about my friend, Lisbeth.”

Chapter
Twenty-One

My discussion with Professor Craig, “James”, went the entire two hours and into his next class.  He was fascinated by Lisbeth’s case and had endless questions.  By the time his room was filling up with the next class he had thanked me for confiding in him and asked me to keep him up on any new developments.  I could tell he was itching to go down with me to visit Lisbeth in the state hospital.  I had left out Dr. Ross “blackmail” but told him I would keep him posted.

As I walked across the campus towards my car, I checked my cell and noticed a text from
Logan.  He asked how I was doing and wanted to me to give him a call after his shift tonight.  I had to admit, I felt a bit conflicted and torn. 

On one hand, I really appreciated his help.  It was great having someone to talk to that understood the situation with Lisbeth.  He seemed concerned and caring and had an insight into the law enforcement side of this that was invaluable.  He was handsome and easy to talk to and didn’t seem to mind my questions and concerns.

On the other hand, I was beginning to get the feeling he was interested in more.  In a way, it was flattering, especially to my bruised self-esteem.  But I wasn’t so sure I was ready for another relationship quite yet.  It had only been a few months since my divorce had become final. I was only just now working on getting my life back, figuring out how to be independent and self-supportive. I was still working on learning how to trust again.  And I didn’t know if it was such a good idea to add another complication to an already complicated situation.

When I got back to my small apartment, I dropped my heavy backpack on the table next to the door and reached down to pet my new black kitten that came to the door to greet me. 
He was just a few months old and completely black from head to toe with bright yellow-green eyes.  A neighbor had found him after he’d been abandoned by his mother so I had taken him in.  I guess I had always had a soft spot for strays. Besides, it was really nice having a friendly greeting when I came home and his playful antics were great at cheering me up. I had decided to call him Jynx.

Slipping off my tennis shoes, I curled up on my small stuffed sofa and thumbed through the mail I’d brought in on my way. 
The kitten happily played with my shoelaces and was glad for the company.

 
Junk mail.  School loan bill notice.  Power bill.  More junk mail.  Nothing interesting until the last envelope.  It was addressed to me in a familiar, hand-written print.  I opened it up and scanned the note.  It was written on small, plain notebook paper.  There were two pages.

“Caitlyn,

“I’ve missed you so much.  Why haven’t you visited me lately?  Dr. Ross says he put you on the visitor’s list.  But you haven’t come. 

“I’m running out of time.  You know that.  I really need you to help me.  I’ve told you I didn’t kill my mother.  I told you she was alive when I left that night.  You have to prove my innocence.  You’re the only one that cares enough about me to help. 
You’re all that I have left now.  I can’t do it without you.  If you don’t help me, I’ll end up locked up for the rest of my life.”

The words broke my heart.  She had so much faith and trust in me, but what could I really do to help?  The evidence against her was strong, despite what she said.  I felt hopeless, useless.  It was then that I looked at the second page.

“
Cate, we need to talk.”

The handwriting was clearly different.  I scanned through my memory to try to remember whose handwriting this was.

“There are things you need to know.  We need to talk about Barbara.  We didn’t kill her.  We can prove it. There are some things about the Dragon that you should know.  Look forward to seeing you.”

The note wasn’t signed, and that disturbed me as much as the handwriting.  I took the note and went into my bedroom and sat down on the floor next to my bed.  Reaching underneath, I pulled out a shoebox that was old and yellowing and opened up the lid.  Inside were numerous letters in careful piles, each were in chronological order from the first one I had received from Lisbeth all those years ago
to the last one I had received at my parents house.  I filed through them, careful not to get them out of order.

They were in various kinds envelopes and written on several types of paper. From nice stationary with fancy borders to generic college rule lined paper. The printing could be anything from smooth ink to the texture of a rough wax crayon.

I scanned through them all, travelling back in time to those months when she was first adjusting to being at the state hospital. 

She felt alone, isolated, lonely.  She thought the other patients were
really
crazy, while she was just dealing with having a lot of stress in her life. She’d started smoking to fit in with the other “inmates”.  She hated the medications that the “shrinks” were putting her on.  She was tired of feeling like a guinea pig, or like a stoned burn-out. 

She was careful not to make many friends. She thought they were all so much crazier than she was. Besides, she didn’t plan on being in there for long. And why would she want to be friends with any of them after she was released? It wasn’t as though any of them were going to
be accepted to one the major universities she still planned on attending some day.

The handwritings often changed from paragraph to paragraph.  Lisbeth’s familiar scrawl was the most common and prominent.  Sometimes it would be Lizzy’s child-like print when she was feeling especially fearful or threatened.  Liz had a broad, flowing cursive that appeared when she wanted to give an especially snide comment on a certain member of the staff that was irritating her. 

Jade had little tolerance for the whole idea of being institutionalized, and her quick-slashed rants were easy to pick out.  I knew most of the handwritings of the family, and the one in this letter wasn’t familiar.  Of course, not all of them had written in the previous letters.  Vesper hadn’t appeared in any of the letters, to my knowledge.  And there were still a few members of the family I wasn’t as familiar with.  It could be any one of them. 

I was still sitting cross-legged on the floor with the letters spread out around me when my cell phone rang in the other room. 
I sprinted to answer it before it went to voicemail.

“Hi,
Logan,” I answered after I had dug through my purse to find it, almost missing the call.

“Hey, just wanted to check to see if you got my text
.”  He sounded casual but I sensed an urgency in his voice. 

“I did.  I was going to call you back tonight but-
“ I looked out the window of my small front room and realized it was already getting dark.  “Sorry, I guess I lost track of time.”  I finished lamely.

“That’s ok.”  My mind was still back on the letters, so I admit, I wasn’t paying very close attention.  “I haven’t spoken to you since that day we met at the diner.  I thought I’d check to see how you were doing.”

“I’m doing good.  Staying really busy with school.  How have you been doing?”

“About the same.
  Staying busy at work.  Got a pretty big caseload right now.”  Somehow he seemed to want to say more than to just exchange pleasantries.  “I was wondering, have you been back to visit your friend Lisbeth lately?”

“No, not since I talked to you last.” 
I walked into my small kitchen while I held the tiny cell to my ear with one hand and opened my fridge with the other, looking for something quick to eat.  I hadn’t told him about my visit with Dr. Ross.  I was still deciding what to do about it. “Why do you ask?”

“Well, I got an email today from Mark Jacobs, Lisbeth’s public defender.” 
I shut my fridge and sat down on the bar stool next to my kitchen counter.  He had my attention now.

“Really?
  What did it say?  Are you allowed to tell me?”

“I’d tell you anyway, whether I was allowed to or not.”  He gave a soft laugh that I had to admit, I liked. 
“He said that he’s been working with her psychiatrist, Dr. Ross. He said that with the doctor’s help he might have enough to go to the court and have her declared incompetent to stand trial.  He’ll have her plead not-guilty by reason of insanity.”

My heart dropped to the pit of my stomach.  What was going on here?  Was this some kind of manipulation by Dr.
Ross?  If I didn’t come back and visit her, help him with his case study, he’d take matters into his own hands and have her declared incompetent?  Acid churned through my stomach as I fought the feeling of being controlled.

“Caitlyn, are you still there?”

“I’m still here.”  My voice sounded dull even to my own ears.

“Are you ok?  I thought you’d be thrilled.  Do you know what this means?  She’ll be spared the trial. 
Isn’t that what you wanted?” He sounded hopeful.

“
Logan, pleading not guilty by reason of insanity is basically the same thing as pleading guilty.  She’ll still be considered guilty of killing her mother, but instead of a jail she’ll be in an institution for the rest of her life.” Somehow, the idea of that seemed so depressing. I couldn’t imagine having nothing more to look forward to for the rest of your life than the same four walls and bars on the windows.

“But
Caitlyn, isn’t that the only two options she really has?  Be honest with yourself, the evidence against her is strong.  Isn’t a room in a psych ward an improvement over prison?” He asked, trying to see things logically.

“What if she really didn’t do it?”  I pressed.  “What if they’re really putting away an innocent person and there’s a real killer out there on the loose?”

I heard him sigh on the other end of the line.

“There’s no evidence of anyone else being present at the crime
scene, you know that.  Face it Caitlyn, this might be the best you can hope for.”

I felt deflated as I walked back through my apartment to my bedroom.  I paused in the doorway and looked at the piles of letters on the floor.  Reaching down, I picked up the letter I had received that day.  I looked again at the unfamiliar handwriting on the second page, hoping it would somehow jar my memory. 
Still nothing.

“
Logan, I got a letter from Lisbeth today.”  I glanced down at the bottom left corner of the second page, noticing something I hadn’t seen before.  It seemed to be a kind of symbol or marking written faintly in dark ink.   It looked like small letter “a” and an upside down letter e with a squiggly line in the middle. 



“She still insists that she’s innocent.”

“We’ve been through all this before.  Can you trust her?  Can you ignore the evidence?”

“
Logan, it wasn’t just Lisbeth writing the letter I got today.  One of her personalities was writing it too, one whose handwriting I’m not familiar with.  They said they needed to talk to me about Barbara, that there was something I needed to know about her.  They said that they were all innocent and they could prove it.”

I went silent after that, wondering if
Logan would think I was losing my mind too.  He was quiet for a moment and I wondered just how crazy I sounded.  Just when I thought it was a lost cause, his quiet voice came across the line.

“Then I guess you’d better go back and visit her.”  I smiled to myself, more relieved than I could admit to have someone finally believing in me for a change.  His support meant so much to me I could hardly speak.